He played the part of Mark, king of this imaginary country. The story told how Mark had a lieutenant and friend called Tristram, whom he sent on his behalf to request the hand of the daughter of the king in a land called Ire. The contract was made and Tristram brought Iseult, the daughter, back with him to Mark’s court.
Iseult’s mother, seeking to ensure her daughter’s happiness, gave a love potion to the serving maid who was to go with her. This was to be given to Mark before the wedding, and would ensure that he loved her all his days. But Tristram and Iseult, not knowing what it was, found the flask with the potion and drank it together. So they must love each other, as long as they should live.
A strange uneasiness grew in me as this tale unfolded. I had expected to be bored, never having had much taste for minstrels or mummers, but this was not boredom. I felt a sickness in my stomach, a tightness in my chest as though a giant’s hand gripped my heart.
A scene came in which, with long poetic speeches, Tristram and Iseult declared their love but swore to fight against it. Tristram was Mark’s friend, Iseult his affianced bride. They knew they loved each other but they would not betray him. And as they talked on the stage they drew closer together and then, still swearing they would never yield to love, embraced and kissed.
It was a moment of high drama. All eyes, it seemed, were fixed upon the players. But my eyes went to Blodwen. I saw her look not at the stage but at Edmund; and as though word had gone silently from heart to heart his eyes met hers. For a long moment they locked, then turned away.
The sickness and tightness grew worse, and coldness was added to them. My legs shivered. I had to clamp my jaw tight to keep my teeth from chattering.
I had tried to put aside all thought of what Jenny had said in the garden. If by chance the memory came to me I dismissed it. Now all flooded back. I heard the soft music again in the distance and heard her voice, hard with contempt: “Listen . . . Listen, blind Luke . . .”
The play ran its course. I saw nothing in it but resemblances. Tristram was a skilled player of the harp and sang a love song to Iseult. I thought of Edmund playing his lute in the water meadows and singing: “Greensleeves was all my joy, Greensleeves was my delight . . .” The Player King made Mark a man stupidly blind to what was happening, concerned only with the affairs of state, a dull and heavy creature. I saw myself riding away to Romsey, leaving the pleasant scene behind.
And there rage supplanted sickness. Jenny had said: “Yours are the only eyes that do not see it.” Could that be true? Could the fact of my betrayal be as clear as Mark’s was? Was it the talk of Winchester? The Player King had said he had written the play himself. Were these things jibes at me?
I had an urge to leap down onto the stage, to knock aside the wooden sword the Player King wore with my steel one, and spit him with it. But as always my mind worked coldly behind my rage. There might be killing needed yet, but this was not the time.
The play ended somehow. Mark killed Tristram, I think, and Iseult stabbed herself. I was only concerned that it should be over. The players paraded for our applause and then the Player King came to me again, and asked if their poor efforts had met with my approval.
“It was entertaining,” I said, “as these things go.”
He bowed stiffly, disconcerted. Blodwen said:
“Oh, it was good! We have no better players in Klan Gothlen. And the play was finely written. Luke, you must reward him well.”
I saw her face, candid and eager, and could not believe her false. Behind her Edmund smiled at me, as he had done many times, over her enthusiasm. If they were not honest the whole world was a stinking ruin, broken and slimed like the village which the Bayemot overran. And I had killed the Bayemot. I said to the Player King:
“You played well. Gold will be sent you in the morning.”
• • •
But in the night I woke, and having wakened did not sleep again. Scenes from the play came back to me; the words of the two lovers rang in my ears with Jenny’s mocking voice behind them. “Listen . . . Listen, blind Luke . . .” I tossed and turned and, rising early, took a horse and rode out of the North Gate, past the astonished watch.
I rode hard and far, like a coward fleeing from a battlefield. But there was no escaping this battle; its blind and hateful warriors harried me without mercy, and a hundred swords pierced me. And I knew there was no medicine to heal these wounds.
So I came back, tired and sick at heart, to the city which I ruled. I had become a slave to my own eyes and ears. I must watch them both, listen to every word that passed between them, interpret every gesture. While I did so, I must hide my misery.
And in my slavery I was tossed to and fro. I would see her look at him and fill with anger. Then she would look at me, wide-eyed and smiling, and the anger would turn to love, and self-disgust. I had no interest in anything else. My Captains came to me, with news or questions, and I listened and spoke and a moment later did not know what they had said or I had replied.
Days passed. I had no appetite but forced myself to eat, dully chewing and swallowing the food which like everything else but one thing had become meaningless. My life was consumed with watching, guessing. Then one night, when we had both been guests in his mother’s house, he handed her her cloak on parting and I saw his hand rest, for another long moment, on her shoulder.
We walked through the streets toward the palace; for so short a distance we had not brought horses. They were less dark than they had been: last winter I had had oil lamps put up such as they had in Salisbury. Blodwen hummed a tune. I said:
“Are you happy?”
“Yes!”
“Are you thinking yet of returning to Klan Gothlen?”
She glanced at me in surprise. “Why, no.”
“You have been a long time here.”
She laughed. “Have I outstayed my welcome, then?”
“If you do not go soon, you will be caught by the winter.”
“Would that be so terrible a thing?”
I said slowly: “I was wondering . . . what it is that keeps you.”
“I have told you. I love your city. More than my own, I think.”
I said: “What person?”
“What person? Who else but Luke, Prince of Three Cities?”
She said the words lightly, jesting, but there was a falseness. I asked:
“What of Edmund?”
“I am fond of Edmund, and all your friends.”
“Only fond?”
She stopped. We stood under an oil lamp. Some distance away a polymuf scuttled into an alley, made still more crooked in shape by the shadows which surrounded him. We were alone. Blodwen said:
“Speak openly, Luke, and honestly.”
My throat swelled and I had to force words from it.
“This,” I said. “Have you betrayed me with Edmund?”
Her eyes looked into mine unflinchingly. “I have not betrayed you with Edmund, or anyone.”
My misery lifted. I could live again as a free man, not a fugitive from nightmares. I said:
“You swear this?”
“If swearing is needed, I swear it.”
I wanted only one thing more. I took her hands.
“And you do not love him? You will swear that, too?”
She smiled, and for the instant all was well. Then she shook her head.
“No,” she said softly. “That I will not swear.”
FIVE
THE COUNCIL OF CAPTAINS
I SENT WORD VERY EARLY to Edmund that I wished him to ride with me. It was still dark when we clattered down the High Street, drawing curses from an upper room where the noise of our passing roused some good citizen from sleep, across the river and along the road to East Gate.
He asked me when we met what reason there was for our journey, at such an hour. I told him he would know in good time. It had crossed my mind that Blodwen might have sent word to him herself, telling him of what had passed between us, and I searched his face
for sign of this. But the bewilderment there was real; he truly did not know why I had come for him. He shrugged his shoulders and, accepting his Prince’s command as a Captain must, mounted and rode with me.
The guard saluted us as we left the city. I set no frenzied pace as I had done on that recent solitary ride. Then my adversaries had been phantasms of the mind. Now there was only one, who had a face and rode at my side. The sky ahead was paling with the dawn. I looked behind me at the gate and remembered my father’s head, stuck on a spear above it. I had thought life could bring no greater anguish than that. It seemed a small thing now.
We traveled in silence. Edmund was not unused to this. I had had my times of silence before, when my mind was busy with some project and I saw no need of speech, and he had accustomed himself to them. The city slept behind us. There was only the sound of hoofs and harness and our horses’ breaths snorting in the chilly air.
We reached the Elder Pond, black and rimmed with ice, and I took the fork that led to the Contest Field. I reined my horse in when we reached it. It lay bare and empty, with the dark mass of Catherine’s Hill behind it. On the hill’s top its grove of trees stood like mourners against the ashen sky. I thought of this place as I had seen it once, with the sun shining after rain on a spring day, and the whole city, it seemed, cheering the Young Captains as they led their teams in for the Contest.
There had been something to win then, too, and against great odds. I remembered my young self. Had I fought so hard for no more than a jeweled sword?
Edmund kept the silence. I said at last:
“Do you recall the time we fought here?”
“Of course.”
“And how I beat you.”
He smiled. “That, too.”
“You said once, when we watched another Contest together, that on a second chance you would have won.”
“Did I, Luke?” He shook his head. “I do not remember that.”
“Do you still think so?”
“That I would have beaten you? No. I knew that after you had killed the Bayemot. I have some courage but when the odds are hopeless I draw back. You would always beat me; not so much because you are a better fighter as because you will not accept defeat.”
I paused before I said: “At least some good came of it.”
“Yes. You rule three cities, and will rule more.”
I said: “Our friendship.”
“Yes. A better thing still.”
“It has meant much to me. I have Captains who serve me well, a dwarf warrior who would die for me, but those things are not friendship. There were three of us: you, Martin and I. Martin turned Acolyte and now has left us altogether, to go to Sanctuary. Only you and I remain.”
There was a faraway honking and high up small dots trailed across the gray. Wild geese, on their journey to lands we would never know. I said:
“Let us talk of Blodwen, Edmund.”
Our eyes met. He said slowly: “What of her?”
“I think you know.”
He did not deny that, but said: “There has been nothing between us.”
“Nothing?” I spoke bitterly. “No looks, no touches of hands?”
“No more than that.”
“Listen,” I said, “she is mine. Cymru gave her to me at the banquet at which we both sat, after the killing of the Bayemot. Is this not true?”
“Yes,” Edmund said. “But she is a girl, not something to be given.”
In the mind’s eye I saw Blodwen again, as she stood with me on the staircase above her father’s throne room, and heard her voice: “I am not an honor—I am Blodwen! I will be my own woman. Remember that, Luke of Winchester.” I said:
“Is it the office of a friend to come between a man and his betrothed bride, even with a single look?”
Then he looked ashamed. He said in a low voice:
“It was not meant. I promise you.”
“You could not help it?”
“No.”
“Perhaps you could not. I do not think I blame you. But you are a free man. You can make an end of it now.”
He did not speak. I said:
“I claim this for our friendship’s sake.”
The wind blew cold down Catherine’s Hill and our horses stamped their feet. Edmund spoke at last.
“I will end it.”
I reached across and clasped his arm. “I will not forget this! And now, I have a mission for you.”
He looked startled. “A mission?”
“To Oxford. To talk in public with its Prince; in private with its Prince in Waiting. I look for two alliances, one open, the other secret.”
Edmund said: “How long will the mission last?”
“I will expect you back in the spring. We will watch the Contest of the Young Captains together.”
“And when would you have me go?”
“Today.”
“Be open with me,” he said. “It is because of Blodwen that I am to be sent away? Such a mission would be best in older hands than mine.”
“You have been too free with her. This you admit. You said you could not help it and I believe you. All things wither without nourishment. It is better that you do not see her for a time.”
I twitched my horse’s rein, turning her head back toward the city. Edmund said: “Hold, Luke.”
“Well?”
“Have you spoken to Blodwen of this?”
It might have been better to lie, but I could not.
“Yes.”
“What did you say to her?”
“I asked her if she had betrayed me with you. She swore she had not. I knew she spoke truth.”
“And what else?”
I echoed him: “What else?”
His voice had changed. There was boldness in it.
“You put a question to her and got your answer. But still you need to send me away to Oxford. Is it only my weakness you fear? What reassurance did you seek from Blodwen, and not find?”
I said: “What passes between Blodwen and me is our concern, not yours.”
“You are wrong, Luke! I will not go on your mission until I have put a question to her. And if her answer is what I think it may be, then you must find another man for Oxford.”
I felt cold again: a cold sharper and more inward than that which the wind scoured from the ugly sky.
“You will not try to take her from me.”
“Not unless she puts out a hand to me. But if she does, nothing will stop me taking it.”
“Not friendship?”
“Not anything!”
He spoke exultantly. I said:
“And if I beg you?”
All my body trembled. I felt tears start in my eyes, and blinked them back.
He said: “Do not beg for something which I cannot give.”
“Cannot, or will not?”
“What difference is there? There are strengths beyond our own.”
I said, wonderingly, to myself almost: “I never doubted your loyalty. I would have doubted my own sooner. I know my weaknesses and I gave you best in friendship. But I could not do such injury to a friend. I would die first.”
The day was lighter, and I saw him flush. He said:
“You are my friend, but Blodwen I love. There is a difference in our natures. I do not think you have ever truly loved. Or ever could.”
“I loved you,” I said, “who were my friend.”
He shook his head. “Talking does no good.”
“Listen,” I said. “Forget friendship, if it means so little to you. Have you thought of the harm that can come from this? Not just to us, but to the city.”
“You have got your city,” he said. “Keep it. We do not want it.”
He linked her desires with his, as though of right. Pain raked its claws through me. I said:
“Even if I would, I could not let you have her. I am Prince of the city and she, daughter of the King of the Wilsh, is to be my bride. If it is not held to I am no Prince, and chaos follows.”
“Then let it follow. You cannot stop us, Luke.”
“I am Prince,” I said. “I have some powers.”
We rode together back to the city and in silence. The guard saluted us again at the East Gate, and I bade him bring the Sergeant. He was out of the guardhouse on the instant. His name was Tunney, one of Harding’s men, old for a warrior but still powerful. I pointed to Edmund.
“Arrest him.”
• • •
Blodwen said: “Luke, what have you done?”
Her face was white and she showed signs of haste. She had come unannounced to where I sat in my parlor. It was early still. Outside the window a few small flakes of snow drifted slowly down.
I said: “In what way, lady?”
“They say that Edmund is under guard. Because of what I said last night? I promise you . . .”
I thought she might lie, to save him, and did not want to hear it. I cut across her words.
“I gave an order to a Captain and he refused to obey it. That is all and that is enough.”
“What order?”
I told her of the mission to Oxford. Her eyes were on my face as I spoke, and I watched her watching me. At the end she said only:
“What will you do to him?”
“A Prince must have obedience from his Captains, in peace as much as in war. You know this. Disobedience imperils the city and merits death. But I will do him no harm. I will only banish him.”
“You cannot do it, Luke.”
“I must,” I said, “or see a man walking the streets of Winchester who has defied my authority. Would you rather I kept him in perpetual imprisonment? Even that would be too great a risk to take.”